On the dissociation of spectral and temporal cues to the voicing distinction in initial stop consonants

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
It has been claimed that a rising first-formant (F1) transition is an important cue to the voiced–voiceless distinction for syllable-initial, prestressed stop consonants in English. Lisker [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 57, 1547–1551 (L) (1975)] has pointed out that the acoustic manipulations suggesting a role for F1 have involved covariation of the onset frequency of F1 with the duration, and hence the frequency extent, of the F1 transition; he has argued that effects hitherto ascribed to the transition are more properly attributed to its onset. Two experiments are reported in which F1 onset frequency and F1 transition duration/extent were manipulated independently. The results confirm Lisker’s suggestion that the major effect of F1 in initial voicing contrasts is determined by its perceived frequency at the onset of voicing and show that a periodically excited F1 transition is not, per se, a positive cue to voicing. In further experiments, the relative levels and the frequencies at the onset of voicing of both F1 and F2 were manipulated. The influences on the perception of stop-consonant voicing that resulted were determined specifically by the frequency of F1 and not by its absolute or relative level or by the overall distribution of energy in the spectrum. The results demonstrate a complementary relationship between perceptual cue sensitivity and production constraints: In production, the VOT characterizing a particular stop consonant varies inversely with the degree of vocal-tract constriction, and hence with the frequency of F1, required by the phoneme following the stop; in perception, the lower the frequency of F1 at the onset of voicing, the longer the VOT that is required to cue voicelessness. In this way, the inclusion of F1 onset frequency in the cue repertoire for voicing, and the establishment of the cue trading relationship, reduce the problem of contextual variation that would be met were VOT alone, or some other amalgam of cues, the only basis of the voicing distinction.

This publication has 6 references indexed in Scilit: